What kind of year it has been

13 months, 50 Blu-rays, 2 degrees, and innumerable personal failures since my last post and… hi. How are you? It’s been a while. Why won’t you look me in the eyes when we make love?

This last year’s been sorta rough. Not nearly as bad as 2011, which I would rate as objectively the worst year of my life, but nonetheless something of a bitch. I’ll try to summarize an entire year in one paragraph for the both of you who care (hi real drew! hi other person!).

The first 5 months didn’t count since I was slogging through my senior year of school and nothing really interesting happened anyway. After finally graduating, I worked all summer and then took an ill-advised detour to grad school, which I hated and left. Then I sat on my ass for a few months, various annoying shits happened, and now I’m working once more. Also I’m writing games again! Wheeeeeee

But enough about my enormous throbbing manhood, let’s talk movies and games. 2012 was a remarkably mediocre year in both departments with a few exceptions, such as The Cabin in the Woods, Moonrise Kingdom, Argo, Looper, Seven Psychopaths and Django Unchained for films. Dishonorable mentions go to The Devil Inside, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, and especially fucking Prometheus.

Hey, speaking of dishonorable, Dishonored was one of the very, very few games that came out in 2012 that I actually played, and it wasn’t half bad. The gameplay was addictively fun, if a bit too easily exploited, and the art design was magical, but I don’t think I’ve seen a more formulaic, predictable, and ultimately unsatisfying story in anything not featuring sparkly vampires (are twilight jokes still cool? i dunno i’ve been under a rock for a year whaddaya want from me). FTL was a standout for ’12, particularly the entire night I spent playing it while stranded in the Atlanta airport. Another old-school indie release I enjoyed was Legend of Grimrock. I’d never really played too many dungeon crawlers before but I always enjoyed those I did, and Grimrock absolutely aces the crawling of dungeons. Finally, the only other notable game that came out in 2012 that I didn’t actually play until 2013 is Far Cry 3, and it’s definitely my favorite of the bunch. Despite being stuffed to the second sphincter with nitpicks (the save system, Uplay, the menus, and so forth) it’s easily the most purely fun playing experiences I’ve had since Skyrim. Add to that the facts that Ubisoft actually gave a shit about the story and characters, the Emma Stone levels of sexy graphics, and all the awesome stuff I’m too nice to spoil and you get my game of the year for 2012.